The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its troops are pushing into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as Russian troops continue to make gains amid faltering ceasefire negotiations.
“Units of the 90th Tank Division of the Battlegroup Center have reached the western border of the Donetsk People’s Republic and continue developing their offensive on the territory of the Dnipropetrovsk Region,” the ministry said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
It’s unclear at this point if Russian troops have broken through into Dnipropetrovsk or if they’re still fighting on the border. Russian forces have also been making gains in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy Oblast as Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the creation of a “buffer zone” along the Russia-Ukraine border.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that Ukraine would face new “realities on the ground” due to its failure to recognize the realities of the war at the negotiating table.
“Those who do not want to recognize the war realities at the negotiations will get new realities on the ground. Our Armed Forces have begun an offensive in the Dnipropetrovsk Region,” said Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy of Russia’s security council.
Moscow’s conditions for ending the war include the Ukrainian withdrawal from the four oblasts Russia annexed in 2022: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine has vowed that it won’t cede any territory or recognize the areas Russian forces currently control as part of Russia.
Both sides have said that they will continue the negotiations, and they are proceeding with a prisoner swap that was agreed upon during the last round of direct negotiations, held in Istanbul on June 2. But fighting continues to rage across the frontline, and heavy Russian missile and drone attacks have been hitting targets across Ukraine while Ukrainian drones continue to target Russian territory.
